What is the American Dream? To me it means that no matter who you are or where you begin, in America you can climb as far as your imagination, ambition, hard work and God-given abilities can take you. But what has happened to that dream?
Many countries have a “class” system and once born into a specific “class” that is where you stay. You can advance within your class but never move into an upper class. Since the income tax was enacted in 1913, we have moved away from the American dream. We’ve often heard the phrase “lower and middle income workers,” but over the last few years that phrase has changed to “lower and middle class.” It may seem like a small change in wording, but it means a great deal in how a society functions. When we start seeing ourselves as “classes,” we become jealous of those who have more and “class warfare” abounds. We have moved away from admiring those who achieve to denigrating them for “using” the working man to obtain evil profit. Look at our movies and TV programs. How often is the villain a wealthy person or a corporation? How often have you heard yourself described as “middle class” by our newspeople and politicians? Much of this change has come through the manipulation of the income tax code and its regulations. Our politicians have used these taxes to pick winners and loosers to advance their political agenda. It’s time for this to stop.
One answer is to enact the Fair Tax. It repeals the 16th amendment and removes the political manipulation. It removes corporate taxes so they can grow and create more jobs. It totally un-taxes all legal Americans up to the poverty level. It’s fair, it’s simple, and it’s transparent. You can learn more at fairtax.org or flfairtax.org. Let’s free our people to be all that they can be and enact the FairTax.
Elaine Maiellaro
Ocala